Of course not. We hold a free and fair election and install our puppet, put in the guys we want to support him and it's off to the races. No need to annex territory when you own the guys who run it as your proxy.
As I stated, our foreign policy has been far from perfect. Still what Putin did was an act of war. He has no legitimate claim of self-defense, and the tragic affair would not have happened if he would have stayed home.
While Putin may have been hoping to copy that model of puppet installation, our own history of that has resulted in more burdens than successes.
Freedom cannot be given to a people. It must be earned by those people, and the price can only be paid in blood.
I do not know that is correct.
We took a lot of territory. Most of it was without votes, but by purchase or conquest.
We took and held the Northeast territories by force.
We purchased the Louisiana purchase, from France.
Texas legally broke away from Mexico by force, then petitioned to join the USA.
We defeated Mexico in war, and paid for the mostly unpopulated territories from California to Oklahoma.
We purchased Alaska from Russia.
Hawaii created their own government, and petitioned to join the United States. The Congress refused; then McKinley, on his own, agreed.
There are others, Florida, the Northwest territories, American Samoa, etc.